Arts & Ideas

At the height of summer, Matthew Sweet and guests turn their minds to tennis, beaches and walking. As Wimbledon continues, Benjamin Markovits and William Skidelsky consider the philosophy of tennis; New Generation Thinker Des Fitzgerald explores the geography of a little known beach in Cardiff city centre; Rachel Holmes goes on a walking tour of Eleanor Marx's Sydenham in south London. A Weekend in New York is by Benjamin Markovits Federer and Me: A Story of Obsession is by William Skidelsky Eleanor Marx: A Life is by Rachel Holmes The links between Japan and Wales, and the geography of a particular Welsh beach are explored by KIZUNA: Japan | Wales | Design opens at National Museum Cardiff runs until 9 September 2018. Des Fitzgerald is a lecturer in sociology at Cardiff University who studies the history of medicine, science and neuroscience and city life. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio. Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Playwright Charlotte Jones, author Laurence Scott, New Generation Thinkers Lisa Mullen and Iain Smith join Matthew Sweet.Charlotte Jones discusses her new play set in a Quaker community during the Napoleonic Wars. Matthew Sweet visits Compton Verney Art Gallery with Lisa Mullen to see the exhibition, 'Marvellous Mechanical Museum' which re-imagines the spectacular automata exhibitions of the 18th century. Laurence Scott talks about the ideas in his book, 'Picnic Comma Lightning' which explores the way digital advances are changing the way we live and what we reveal about ourselves. And, from the Indian Superman to Batman in the Philippines, film historian and New Generation Thinker Iain Smith looks at the hidden history of unlicensed superhero films produced around the world.Iain Robert Smith is a Lecturer in Film Studies at King's College, London. Laurence Scott is a New Generation Thinker Lecturer in Writing at New York University in London and the author of 'Picnic Comma Lightning' which is to be broadcast as the Radio 4 Book of the Week from July 16-20th.The Marvellous Mechanical Museum is at Compton Verney until September 20th 2018.Charlotte Jones's drama The Meeting runs at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester from 13 July – 11 AugustNew Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.Producer Fiona McLean

The Italian architect and engineer, Renzo Piano, talks to Philip Dodd about his career from the Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers) to the Shard in London and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. 50 years of his work are being marked in an exhibition at London's Royal Academy of Arts from the 15th of September to the 20th of January 2019. Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Nandini Das and John Gallagher look at words for strangers in Tudor and Stuart England and ideas about civility. Plus Shahidha Bari talks to Makena Onjerika the winner of the 2018 Caine Prize for African Writing. And, as the NHS approaches its 70th anniversary, we discuss the relationship between care, institutions, and the concept of medicine with novelist and former nurse Christie Watson, and historian of the NHS Roberta Bivins. Nandini Das is working on the Tide Project http://www.tideproject.uk/ exploring travel and identity in England 1550 - 1700 She and John Gallagher are taking part in the Society for Renaissance Studies conference at Sheffield University this week. Christie Watson is the author of The Language of Kindness: A Nurse's Story. Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir 'Fun Home' on stage at the Young Vic in London reviewed by Jen Harvie from Queens Mary University of London, a novel inspired by Kathy Acker from Olivia Laing, Film historian and broadcaster Ian Christie on the 40th anniversary of Michael Cimino's film, 'The Deerhunter' and a new biography by Michèle Mendelssohn on Oscar Wilde's time in America. Mathew Sweet presents. Fun Home - which explores family, memory and sexuality, runs at the Young Vic in London from June 18th to September 1st 2018. Jen Harvie, Professor of Contemporary Theatre & Performance, at Queen Mary University of London Olivia Laing is the author of 'The Lonely City' and her new novel is called 'Crudo'. 'Making Oscar Wilde' by Michèle Mendelssohn is out now. 'The Deer Hunter' is in cinemas from July 4th.Producer: Fiona McLean

Can beauty be an ethical ideal? What did being handsome mean in C18 England? How do we look at images by Egon Schiele and Francesca Woodman or a Renaissance nude and is that affected by changing attitudes towards the body now? Anne McElvoy talks to the painter, Chantal Joffe, the philosopher, Heather Widdows, the writer, performer and activist Penny Pepper and the New Generation Thinkers Catherine Fletcher and Sarah Goldsmith. Chantal Joffe's solo show - Personal Feeling is the Main thing - is at the Lowry in Manchester until 2nd September. The Tate Liverpool exhibition Life in Motion: Egon Schiele and Francesca Woodman runs until September 23rd. The Italian Renaissance Nude by Jill Burke from the University of Edinburgh is out now from Yale University Press. Penny Pepper's book First in the World Somewhere, a memoir is published by Unbound New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio. Sarah Goldsmith is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Leicester working on A History of the Eighteenth-Century Elite Male Body. Catherine Fletcher is Associate Professor at Swansea University who has published Diplomacy in Renaissance Rome and The Black Prince of Florence.Producer: Zahid Warley

Rana Mitter discusses food in history. James C Scott on the role of grain and coercion in the development of the first settled societies, and how the Victorians changed lunch, with New Generation Thinkers Elsa Richardson and Chris Kissane. Plus, following the death of American philosopher Stanley Cavell last week, Rana discusses his work and legacy with Stephen Mulhall and Alice Crary. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio. James C Scott is Stirling Professor of Political Science at Yale University. Elsa Richardson is a lecturer at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow who is researching the 19th-century history of vegetarianism. Chris Kissane is a Visiting Fellow in Economic History at the LSE who has written Food, Religion and Communities in Early Modern Europe.Producer: Luke Mulhall

170 years ago one woman launched the beginning of the modern women’s rights movement in America. New Generation Thinker Joanna Cohen of Queen Mary University of London looks back at her story and what lessons it has for politics now. In the small town of Seneca Falls in upstate New York, Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote The Declaration of Sentiments, a manifesto that took one of the nation’s most revered founding documents, Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, and turned its condemnation of British tyranny into a blistering attack on the tyranny of American men. But why did Stanton choose to rebrand her claim for rights with the power of sentiment?

The lawyer turned poet whose response to political upheaval has lessons for our time - explored by New Generation Thinker Seb Falk with an audience at the York Festival of Ideas The 14th century’s most eloquent pessimist, John Gower has forever been overshadowed by his funnier friend Chaucer. Yet his trilingual poetry is truly encyclopedic, mixing social commentary, romance and even science. Writing ‘somewhat of lust, somewhat of lore’, Gower's response to political upheaval was to ‘shoot my arrows at the world’. Whether you want to be cured of lovesickness or learn the secrets of alchemy, John Gower has something to tell you.

A radical community of women set up in 1760s rural England is explored in an essay from New Generation Thinker Lucy Powell, recorded with an audience at the 2018 York Festival of Ideas.Sarah Scott’s first novel, published in 1750, was a conventional French-style romance, the fitting literary expression of a younger daughter of the lesser gentry. One year later, she had scandalously fled her husband’s house, and pooled finances and set up home with her life-long partner, Lady Barbara Montagu. Her fourth novel, Millenium Hall, described in practical detail the communal existence of a group of women who had taken refuge in each other’s company and created an all-female utopia in rural England. On Lady Bab’s death, in 1765, Scott would attempt to create this radical community in actuality. Lucy Powell will explore the life, work, and far-reaching influence of this extraordinary writer.